Upgrading stereo system

[ChunkFunky]

There's low priced (inexpensive) and there's cheap...

most people will tell you to avoid brands like jensen and pyramid.

Etronics just has really good prices on EVRYTHING... but some stuff is still cheap... and not to say it wont work... but there's certain things you need to know about stereos....actulay one word: RMS

RMS is a good standard to work with. They'll sell you an amp that's 50 thousand watts.. but that's PEAK power.... and peak is fine... that's what gives you hard punches... but you need an amp that can give you good power all the time. and thats where the RMS comes in... I think it's ROOT MEAN SQUARED... it's a way of measureing WATTAGE.. I wont pretend to understand all that fancy crap, but I DO know this... you're going to want to run a good amp without maxing it out... you're much better running a high powered amp at half power then a lower powered amp at FULL power...


I wont tell you NOT to buy a cheaper amp, I've used RADIO SHACK amps and they'd worked fine. I've also used no name amps and they've worked fine. There's lots of specs on an amp though...

for example (this is for a profile amp)

Channel separation: 85dB
Maximum output: 100 watts x 4
RMS output at 4 ohms: 50 watts x 4
RMS output at 2 ohms: 75 watts x 4
Bridged output : 150 x 2 at 4 ohms


There's a difference between PEAK and RMS... allways use the RMS as a basis for comarison... another to worry about is signal to noise ratio.... basiclay the amount of distortion that amp lets through at higher volumes... bla bla bla... you can go ON ON ON about this stuff.. I'm no expert.... I would advise to do some searches on car stereo installtion and read... and read more then one page.. cause different people will tell you different things... but I figure if you read 10 different pages and 8 of them say one thing and 2 say something else, you can use the law of averages to figure out whats the best way to go.

one last thing... OHMS... if you notice the amp can put out more power with lower OHMs, wich is resistance... its how hard the amp has to push the power through the speaker... it makes sense.. if it's a path of less resistance you dont have to push so hard... so you need to buy the amp and the speaks to work together... most amps now are stable to 2 OHMS... though i'd say most speakers still run at 4... but things change..
-as